ROLE
Programmer - Game Designer
High Concept
Alchemy Frogs is a 3D co-op puzzle platformer game in which Frog & Toad traverse a poisoned magical swampy forest to stop Benji the evil magical cat and cure the forest, saving their family from being turned to stone. Together, the players must use their personal porta-cauldrons to brew potions and then throw them at hazards spawned by the mysterious plague. Frog & Toad will mix their potions to unleash powerful magical effects, growing plants over dangerous salt pits or exploding obstacles with alchemical dynamite.
Description
Alchemy Frogs was made in 6 months at Vancouver Film School with a core team of 6 people, with 9 collaborators helping with Audio, Art, and Writing.
While everyone on the team had their roles, everyone also was part of the design.
Having a team of 6 people doing design was very beneficial because we could easily bounce ideas back and forth.
My main role on this project was Programmer for the gameplay and other things. I had a big part in the design and the team had many meetings about it.
We made sure to keep it on course without over-scoping and keeping the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics in check.
The main features I worked on were:
- Potions and the effects they cause when hitting the proper object, as well as using a parabolic arc to ensure they are thrown consistently and predictably.
- Hazardous effects when players walk into dangerous objects that hurt them over time. This effect is shown above the player using a depleting health donut to indicate how much time you have remaining before you die.
- Implementing the animations on the characters after they were made by the artist. Used layer blending to keep the legs moving while doing other actions.
- Created a shader for the vegetation that makes it move realistically with the wind. Vegetation gets pushed aside when players walk into or through it.
- Making the co-op features function:
(Frog boosting) Gain extra height by jumping on your friend's head to reach areas normally too high.
(Knockback) By throwing dynamite at the other player, they can knock each other back.
(Potions) Assigned unique potions to both players. Each player has 2 unique ones with a shared dynamite throwable.
(Respawning) Players will respawn at checkpoints when they die.
